I’ve been waiting to write this post for a really long time but in between looking after a tiny human, trying to get enough sleep, working out and editing shoots, my blog has taken a step back.

But finally I’ve found the time (6am whilst watching baby Jake if you must know) to sit down and write about my journey back to fitness.

Before getting pregnant I was down to my lowest weight I’d been in a while, and whilst I’d been stronger in the past, I was definitely happy with how lean my body was becoming. This all went out the window as soon as I saw that little cross appear on the pregnancy stick and for the first trimester I ate terribly due to the fact I felt absolutely dreadful and crap food seemed to be the only thing I could stomach. I wanted to continue to workout but by the time my migraines had subsided, I was 17 weeks pregnant with zero motivation. I was cleaning and dog walking at the kennels every day anyway which was definitely enough exercise for a pregnant me.

I gained 3 stone in total during the 9 months and as I watched the scales change, I thought I’d never see my abs again but during the first two weeks as a new mum I lost 2 stone. I’ve already written briefly about how I suffered with the baby blues terribly in the first month and the anxiety left me feeling unable to eat much. I’m still shocked my body was able to produce as much milk as it did because I remember hardly eating anything during those early days.

I had quite bad scarring from having a forceps delivery so even at 6 weeks postpartum I wasn’t able to start exercising properly. I did do walks with the pram but nothing too energetic.Once I was able to start working out again I followed some of the more simple workouts from the body coach and avoided too much core movements as I became paranoid about diastasis recti, although I checked my abs and I only had a very slight separation.

Over the last few months I have slowly but consistently lost weight by making healthier food choices and tracking my calories on my fitness pal and just generally being more active. I have also tried to workout 3 times a week but as you may know, this can be challenging when you’re not getting enough sleep. Some days my energy levels are too low for a workout but I always make sure I get out the house and get my steps in.

I’m not currently a member of the gym so I do all my workouts at home in the kitchen as it’s the biggest space we have. I’ve always loved HIIT & CrossFit style workouts as they are high intensity but also relatively short! Very important when you’re only able to workout during nap time. I’m also not very good at motivating myself to workout so a high intensity 20 minute workout fits my lifestyle much better than a 40 minute gruelling workout where I know I may be interrupted by Dexter waking up.

If you want to see a typical workout I would usually do, head over to my instagram for videos. You can follow #workoutwithrach for any new fitness updates.

In the last two months I’ve been able to fit back into my pre baby jeans and workout leggings so I knew this would be a good time to write this post as I always wanted it to be a collaboration with gymshark. I have their flex leggings which I’ve written about previously and I also have their fit leggings which out of the two, are my fave.

I was once again extremely lucky to be sent a set of Gymshark ombré seamless, which I’d been eyeing up for ages. I just wanted to be able to fit into them so wanted to shed as much of my baby weight as possible.

As you can see the leggings are perfect for my mum tum as they come up really high and hide it! My tummy is still the most wobbly part of my body but that’s to be expected after carrying a baby for 9 months. I’m still shocked the skin looks as good as it does if I’m honest as I was certain it would never return to normal again. Our bodies are amazing though and even the purple stretch marks are nowhere to be seen.

The ombré seamless leggings are a much better length than the flex leggings which are ridiculously long even for people with long legs. And in terms of fitting my new body shape, I definitely prefer these because they don’t have a band around the top that digs in. The flex leggings are still really nice but you do have to be in pretty good shape for them not to cut into your waist. Sizing wise, I went for a small in the leggings and a medium in the sports bra as my back still seems to be a lot wider than it was pre Dexter.

Rich has recently written me a 4 week program because my goal to get down to my pre baby weight by my friends 40th party this month hasn’t happened. Don’t get me wrong, I’m super happy with the progress I’ve made and how my body looks at 6 months postpartum but I still have 4kg to lose before those dresses in my wardrobe will see the light of day again!

I say this a lot, you cannot out train a bad diet. I try to keep this in mind every single day because no amount of working out will shed the pounds if I continue to eat cake and drink iced lattes. But as a new mum winging her way through motherhood, I live for getting out the house to get a Costa so really it’s all about balance, and for me personally, tracking calories.

I’m partial to a meal replacement shake and have been for years. I love how convenient they are and the fact I can drink them whilst on the go. I recently got sent a Promixx vortex mixer, which makes having a shake even easier (and more exciting. Watching it swirl my shake around is actually quite mesmerising) so I’ve been using this for all my shakes. Although, Rich absolutely loves it and is quite often using whenever I need it! It’s great for taking out and about too as it has a little compartment to put the powder in that attaches to the top.

There are still things about my pre baby body I miss and I often wonder if my body will ever be completely the same again but for now I’m happy with my progress and look forward to seeing more changes over the next 6 months. And by then I’ll have a 1 year old!

Now that is a scary thought.

*I collaborated with Gymshark & Promixx on this blog post and couldn’t be happier to share it with you. A big thanks to both brands for working with me and giving me these amazing products to review. This is my 100% honest opinion.

Keeping fit and in (relatively) good shape has always been an important part of my daily life. I’ve had physical jobs for the last 13 years and even when I worked at the riding school, I would spend my lunch hour running instead of sitting in the staff room with everyone else. I like to be active and although I’m older now and my knee and hip joints don’t let me enjoy running as much, I try to workout at least 3 times a week.

Before I met Rich I was the kind of girl who showed up at the gym with every intention of spending 45 minutes doing cardio and abs. Like the majority of young women, I didn’t know much about resistance training or HIIT so I stuck to the things I knew. I met Rich at the gym where he worked and he quickly convinced me to switch up my training to save me getting bored and also to help me benefit more from exercise. He introduced me to high intensity crossfit workouts, weight training and Olympic lifting.

These days I head to the gym with some sort of plan as to what I’m training and if I don’t, I will almost always google a crossfit workout because they are convenient and require little planning. At the moment I’m following 2 workouts from YouTuber Jade Joselyn, one butt workout and one back and shoulder workout. I aim to do the butt workout twice a week and the upper body workout once a week and somewhere in between I’ll throw in a HIIT session to mix things up a bit.

Following routines are a great way to get started if you’re new to the gym. I take a notebook and pen with me with my workouts written down so I can see them in front of me. I’m supposed to record my weights too but to be honest, I’m really not the best at this!

When I start to see results and I’m feeling good about my body, I tend to be more motivated to workout. Unfortunately this isn’t always the case and so there are days when I literally have to drag myself to the gym to exercise. I’ve always sworn by the fact if I feel good in my gym clothes I find it easier to put the effort in. I am a huge fan of my gym clothes and if you know me well enough you will know there’s rarely a day that goes by where I do not leave the house wearing them, even on days I’m not working out! I’m not even sorry.

Having the right pair of workout leggings is probably one of the most important things to me and there is nothing worse than being uncomfortable when you’re training. I bought some really nice (and expensive) leggings from Adidas but after a few wears they just kept falling down and this wasn’t due to the fact I’d lost any weight! So now I can’t workout in them which is a massive shame as they are really flattering on me. I have a selection of different leggings I workout in but the majority of them are from either H&M or TK Maxx.

You can’t be too fussy when buying your leggings because the last things you want are leggings that go see through every time you bend over, or sweat patches between your legs, which is why I always steer clear of grey leggings even though my heart longs for them each time I’m out shopping! Everyone who is anyone seems to own a pair of the Gymshark Flex Leggings and I was beginning to feel like I was the only one who didn’t have any! By the time I got round to ordering they had gone out of stock so you can imagine how excited I was when Gymshark contacted me to see if I wanted to work with them!

They sent me a pair of the flex leggings in rich purple/marl with a soft lilac waistband as they were the only ones they had left in the warehouse in my size. I usually get either an extra small or a small depending on the style of legging. I find that leggings with waistbands similar to these Gymshark ones have a tendency to cut in slightly so in that case I go for a small. As you can see, they do still cut in slightly but to be fair I prefer this to leggings that fall down. Also, it gives me a bit of incentive to lose a bit of fat! LOL.

9 times out of 10 I go for 3 quarter length because I have such short little legs but these ones are actually quite long so I’ve turned them under. Tall people will definitely have no problem with the length of these leggings, it’s us shorties who may find the length a bit of an issue! These ones are next on my list as I think they will be super flattering.

I like my leggings to be tight enough that they don’t fall down but stretchy enough to feel comfortable when I’m squatting, lunging and deadlifting and these Gymshark ones are really comfortable. They kind of feel similar to wearing tights in the sense they are not restrictive at all, and more importantly, they do not go see through nor do they show sweat marks! Result.

My favourite thing about them is the two tone pattern on the back because it’s really flattering on your butt, which in itself is definitely a reason to buy a pair!

These leggings are so popular that they are nearly always out of stock but Gymshark do tend to release new ones every few months. Head on over to their website to check availability.

*I collaborated with Gymshark on this blog post and couldn’t be happier to share it with you! A big thanks to Gymshark for working with me and giving me these awesome leggings that I’ve wanted forever! This is my 100% honest opinion.

If you’ve been following my blog for a while or know anything about me at all, you will know that I am a bit of a gym lover goer. I try to workout at least 3 times a week and have recently joined the gym Rich works at so this is great for motivating me to train regularly.

As I got more into fitness and training with a purpose, I naturally wanted to learn more about nutrition and how I could change my diet in order to help me get stronger, fitter and leaner. You may have already heard the saying ‘you can’t out train a bad diet’ and that 80% of getting in better shape is in fact, what you’re putting into your body. 80% is a lot which is why so many of us struggle to reach our goals. Going to the gym is actually the easy part, it’s learning to be better nutritionally that I find the hardest.

I also found since being diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease that my joints can be really achy at times and this can put me off wanting to do lower body workouts as most of the moves I do involve some form of squat or lunge or burpee. So Rich introduced me to protein shakes and a few supplements to help aid my training, which not only helps me perform better in the gym, but also helps me get a higher intake of protein without having to eat steak for breakfast. Although I’ll be honest I have, in fact, eaten steak for breakfast on many occasions!

And this week we ordered a few things from Myprotein that I thought I would share with you because some of the supplements are good for general health and wellness, not just for people who work out. I think lots of you could also benefit from adding some supplements into your every day. I also get asked quite a lot about which protein I would recommend and although I’d like to do a separate post on this, I’ll touch on it in this one too. So lets crack on!

I should also add that I am in no way an expert on fitness and nutrition, I am just sharing with you what works for me and what I’ve learned over the years.

First up, we ordered a huge bag of chocolate caramel protein powder. So for me, I always tend to get an impact whey ISOLATE as opposed to an impact whey. This is because whey protein isolate contains over 90% pure protein content with under 1% lactose or milk fat so it’s less likely to cause bloating. There’s only 94 cals per serving so it’s great for a little snack. Now, each to their own but I am a firm believer in eating less carbs and more protein and fats. This is something Rich has taught me and it’s worked well for me in the past so I try to stick to it. Obviously I’m not always great, otherwise my body would look a lot leaner than it does but even when I lived at home with my parents it was rare for us to eat bread or have things such as potatoes or pasta with dinner. Most of the time I ate meat and veg and I still eat that way now as it has become the norm. I could bang on about low carbs for an actual lifetime but I won’t, I’ll just say if you want to feel less hungry, less bloated and less tired then maybe try starting your day with protein and fats rather than carbs. See what happens.

During the winter months I really lack energy. I mean, I’ve not yet reached afternoon napping stage but you get where I’m coming from. As soon as it starts getting dark it’s like my body sort of loses power and starts shutting down. It is known that the average person in the UK is deficient in vitamin D because of the lack of sun we get all year round, which is why SAD (seasonal affective disorder) is so common amongst us.

As a crohnie, I can feel extra fatigued at times, which again is literally the worst thing for someone who wants to go to the gym and train. It was suggested to me that I would benefit from taking vitamin D because it is amazing for boosting the immune system (crohn’s is an autoimmune disease) and also really helps to lift your mood and keep you feeling, well, happier. Not gonna say no to feeling happier that’s for sure! So I’ve been taking this for a while now and I do genuinely feel better for it and I’d highly recommend this vitamin to anyone, not just to people who work out.

Crohn’s disease can damage the lower part of the intestine (the ileum) which is necessary for vitamin B12 absorption. Again, I was advised my a nutritionist to take this supplement as deficiencies can manifest as tiredness and fatigue, something I suffer with quite a bit. I couldn’t find B12 on Myprotein website so I ordered B complex instead hoping that it will have the same results!

Like I mentioned previously I suffer with joint pain and I couldn’t (and still can’t) figure out whether this is due to having Crohn’s or from general wear and tear as I’m no spring chicken! Some people argue that weight training can cause the joint pain and believe it puts extra strain on the body but others will argue that weight training is beneficial to the body. I don’t really care who’s right or wrong, I want to continue training and if these supplements help then I’ll be a happy bunny. So far I’ve not been the best at taking them as you’re meant to take 3 a day and I basically forget!

If you know anything about protein shakers you will also be familiar with the bad smell they seem to adopt after a few months of use. It’s literally like death. LOL. So yeah, saw this cute little pink one and thought I’d have it!

Rich also ordered some Beta Alanine and some HMB for himself as there is a whopping 40% off pills and 25% off all products at the moment so if you’re thinking of buying anything now is the time.

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you will probably have heard the word ‘CrossFit’ being thrown around because somewhere, someone on your Facebook is for sure talking about it.

I first set foot in a gym at some point during my late teens and although I loved the idea of being able to run for more than 10 minutes on a treadmill, it just wasn’t really working for me and I found myself going through periods of either being at the gym everyday or not going at all.

I think this is probably the norm for a lot of young girls when they first join a gym as you’re kinda left to your own devices with no real understanding of what the hell you’re doing, or maybe that’s just a really bad assumption! Sorry girls!

Fast forward a few years to when I joined Next Generation Gym in Swindon where I ended up teaching Zumba and meeting Rich, who was working there as a PT. As I got to know him better, Rich gave me a few workouts to do, which would be more beneficial to me instead of using the cardio machines. I started doing a lot more weight training, a bit of olympic lifting and some high intensity workouts. Little did I know that a lot of these workouts were actually CrossFit workouts or WODs as they are called in CrossFit.

After Rich and I got together, he mentioned about us joining a CrossFit gym but somewhere along the way I’d heard bad things about it and I just wasn’t interested.

For those of you who don’t have a clue what I’m talking about when I say ‘CrossFit’, I have taken the definition from the official site:

CrossFit is constantly varied functional movements performed at relatively high intensity. All CrossFit workouts are based on functional movements, and these movements reflect the best aspects of gymnastics, weightlifting, running, rowing and more.

So anyway, back to hearing all the bad things about it. I’d heard that no one at CrossFit cares about form or technique; that they would potentially push me to lift heavy weights without worrying if I was doing it properly and quite frankly, I just wasn’t prepared to put myself through that.

Rich started going and kept telling me how much I would really enjoy it seeing as I was basically already doing similar workouts in the gym by myself. I caved (mainly because him constantly banging on about it drove me insane) and went along to Crossfit Cirencester for my first free taster session.

I’ve been going for the last 3 months now and my initial assumptions couldn’t have been more wrong. And ok, maybe it’s not for everyone; I know there are a million articles out there written by people who say they have had a really bad CrossFit experience, they swear blind they were made to lift heavier and do movements they had no idea how to do, risking injury. But I’ve seen many many people in the gym lifting with bad form or piling on weights which I don’t think they should be lifting till they perfect their technique, but you know, who am I to judge? I for sure wasn’t thrown in at the deep end and all of the coaches I’ve had so far have checked my technique before I’ve been allowed anywhere near a ‘heavy weight’. Just sayin.

All I know is I’m having a pretty good time so here are 5 things I love about CrossFit.

1. The atmosphere

You know that feeling of walking into the gym and wishing you were anywhere but there? Me too. Everyone is in the zone; focused on their own thing with their headphones shoved firmly in their ears so they don’t have to communicate with anyone else. I for one do not always feel motivated to workout when I enter the gym and I can count at least a handful of times where I’ve only made it as far as the carpark before turning my car back around and leaving. True story.

This isn’t the case with CrossFit. When you arrive you know everyone else in the room is going to be doing the same workout as you are and there’s a buzz in the air which makes me feel excited for the hour ahead.

2. Being out of my comfort zone

When I workout alone, it’s all too easy for me to not push myself because hello, who the hell wants to feel uncomfortable if they don’t have to? LOL. I’d much rather stay within the safety of my comfort zone where nothing hurts and I have every faith I will be able to perform whatever it is I’m doing with ease. This is actually one of the main reasons I joined CrossFit as I needed to surround myself with people who were clearly happy to push themselves, to make me see that I too have the potential to go the extra mile and do things I never thought I was capable of doing. Nothing like a healthy bit of competition to kick you into gear! 😉

3. The WODs (workout of the day)

One of the great things about CrossFit is you don’t have to think too much about what you’re doing for your workout. YAY! At CrossFit Cirencester we have a Wodify app where the workouts get released the night before and you can sign into whichever class you can make that day. The workouts are different each time and concentrate on various skills, from gymnastics and olympic lifting through to endurance training and HIIT sessions. Basically, I turn up, get it done and leave knowing I’ve had a good workout. If you’re like me and really can’t be arsed to plan a workout or think too much about what you’re doing, CrossFit is for you!

4. Community

The first rule of CrossFit is: You always talk about CrossFit. 😉

Even though this is a running joke, I have to admit, it is a little bit true. Rich’s brother Stewart used to drive me mental talking about CrossFit every time I saw him and now I fear I may be doing the same thing! Oops. I’m even wearing bright coloured leggings, which I swore I’d never do and drinking protein shakes without milk… GO ME!

Seriously though, I’ve met some really lovely people over the last few months and it doesn’t matter which class I go to, everyone is really welcoming and supportive and this makes a massive difference from being at most gyms– just my opinion of course.

5. Results

Of course I’ve saved this one till last because let’s face it, seeing results is one of the main reasons we feel motivated to workout in the first place. Don’t get me wrong, most of us know diet plays a massive part in how we look and the 80% diet, 20% workout rule still very much applies– it sucks, I know– however, going 3 times a week for the last few months has really improved my overall fitness and I’m definitely stronger. Last week I managed 2 personal bests– a 30kg strict press and a 75kg back squat! I was well impressed with myself and I know for a fact had I not had the encouragement from Andrew, one of the coaches, and David, the owner, I wouldn’t have pushed myself to make that lift.